Or at least the seeds are springing up on my kitchen window sill. I have basil (2 varieties), sage, chives, mint, parsley and oregano. Only the lovage isn’t doing anything yet. My first tumbling tom has sprouted as well and I have poked in a clove of garlic that was trying to grow in the cupboard so I’ll have to see if that manages to come to anything.

The chillis and peppers are coming along well. I have aquired 3 more chillis from a friend, one each of 3 different varieties, so I could end up with a lot of chillis this year! We used one of last years chillis the other night and I’ve saved the seeds from that so I might sow some of those as well – It was quite hot but I don’t know the variety.

Other gardening activities include planting cougette, cucumber, plum tomato, squash, aubergine and dwarf runner bean seeds and lots of reading. I have finished The Edible Container Garden and only have a couple of chapters left of Square Foot Gardening. Both are good for gardening in the sort of spaces they cover. SFG is very prescriptive, but I do like the idea and will probably try and follow it at least to start with. It was the RHS 3 x 3m plots that made me consider veg gardening in the first place but I couldn’t find enough information on what plants, how many per square, when to plant and other details I wanted so this book suits me. It is very american – I’m going to be talking about zuccini before soon, and there is a lot of talk of last frost and first fall frost dates which I have found difficult to find out for the UK. Oh, and some of the ‘pests’ mentioned are unlikely to be found in a UK garden, but the principle should be fairly easy to convert. The one thing I don’t like is the excessive (in my opinion) use of peat, so I will be looking for an alterntive. The explanation on the website that the peat doesn’t need to be replaced still doesn’t sit well with me.

I just need to build my raised bed now – The wood is in the garage so hopefully I will have time to saw and hammer and paint and dig and things soon, yippee!